MySpace showing signs of life, reports 1 million new users

While the total number of visitors to the music-discovery site are down, the surge of new users offers a glimmer of hope for MySpace and its plans for social TV.

MySpace is finally showing signs of life.

The music-discovery site was taken over by Specific Media in a reported $35 million deal last June, and its new owner finally has some encouraging numbers to reveal. Since December, Myspace has added one million new signups. The number of unique U.S. visitors to the site grew by four percent from December to 25.1 million last month, according to comScore data cited in a New York Times report.

Though the number of visitors to the site has dropped roughly 25 percent since last June, there are at last some encouraging signs for the long-plagued Web community.

The recent growth spurt follows the launch of a new music player in December. MySpace now offers on-demand unlimited listening of 42 million songs, and the player has Facebook integration too.

Meanwhile, MySpace has a plan to expand through a social TV partnership it launched with Panasonic last month. The companies will launch a service that will let you chat about what you’re watching and to invite friends to watch with you.

MySpace’s shot in the arm is long overdue. According to comScore data, the site had 34.9 million unique U.S. visitors in May 2011, a far cry from the 75.9 million unique visitors it garnered at the height of its popularity in December 2008. Myspace wasn’t even in the top 10 most-searched-for terms of 2011.

It’s still too tell whether we’re on the verge of seeing an unprecedented comeback by the community. For now at least, it appears Myspace has a faint pulse instead of a flat line.

Based in Montreal, Kris Holt has been writing about technology and web culture since 2010. He writes for Engadget and Tech News World, and his byline has also appeared in Paste, Salon, International Business Times, Mashable, and elsewhere.